Our Target Audience and futher research

After researching other films with the same genre as ours it is important to look at the target audience we are trying to make the film appeal to. The core target audience for the film ‘Pulp Fiction’ is mostly males aged between sixteen and thirty years old (although the film carries an '18' certificate). Fans of action and violent films are also the main audience, especially fans of gangster films. I am hoping the audience for our film will also be mostly males aged 16 and over, as our film will be based on the same genre as that of Pulp Fiction.
A target audience can also look for actors to show that they might like the new film. They could look for actors such as Vinnie Jones who they already know plays lots of gangsters in films, and could choose to watch a new film because it has him in it. However, our film will not have any famous actors in it as we obviously do not have access to them, so we will have to focus on representations to show the audience what type of film it is. The same problem an audience could have is with the director. As we cannot have a director already well known within the gangster genre, the first two minutes of our film will be key to the audience knowing what genre the film is.

More research

As I know now my target audience I am comparing three movies in the gangster/thriller genre to find out any mutual choices of preferences to have in these types of films, or whether to try something different.

Phonebooth
Synopsis - A likeable business man is cheating on his wife, and calls her from the same phonebooth everyday. A mysterious sniper has been watching this and traps the businessman in the phonebooth, before telling him to tell his wife of his affair or he will kill him.
Conventions - murder, affairs, love, regret, insanity
Camera angles, lighting, colour and props - Lighting is always the same as the phonebooth where all the action happens is outside, so the picture is always very clear unlike most thrillers, however this only adds to the atmosphere of the main characters lonliness and helplessness. Camera angles are very creative as the action is just about always around the phonebooth in whch the main character is trapped. A lot of wide shots and close-ups, and when the action happens the edits are very quick and switch from medium shots to close ups oftenly.



Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels
Synopsis - A slick gangster film that centres on a group of friends that compete on a card game and lose, making them in debt to a gangster boss. This movie is full of comedy and different characters.
Conventions - black comedy, hard-edged gangsters, gritty london, violence
Camera angles, lighting, colour and props - The lighting for this film is unusual as it is all tinted a tiny bit in grey, probably to represent a grey london full of gangsters and violence. The camera angles are inventive and unique to this film, with a lot of care and consideration going into each frame. A lot of freeze frames are used to show different characters and give way for the narration of the film.



Rise of the Footsoldier
Synopsis - This film charts the life of one of Britains most feared gangsters Carlton Leach; his early days in football hooliganism, his career as a bouncer through the 'rave scene' and to how he became feared and respected , even after the Rettendon Range Rover murders of 1995.
Conventions - gritty gangsters, real life, violence, sex drug abuse, hooliganism
Camera angles, lighting, colour and props - Camera angles are not very unique, however a lot of wide and mid shots are used to show the action going on on screen. Again this film is tinted grey and dull, especially as these are memories of the main characters life. A lot of cut scenes of old fashoined footage of typical football games and violence, are used to cut up the action and make way for narration. The camera is not steady through all of the action scenes, probably to emphasise teh action and to make the viewer fell like they are there.



In conlusion, I can see that typical things included in gangster films these days include a tint of greythroughout the film to emphasise grittiness, innovative and creative camera angles, a camera that isn't steady through action scenes and freeze frames or cut scenes to allow place for narration of the film. In order to challenge these conventions I will not be using a tint of any colour, and I will be using a steadicam for all action scenes, especially in the opening credits of the movie. Also, I will not be using freezeframes to split up the narration, as I want this film to flow like others such as Lucky Number Slevin.

More Research - Lucky Number Slevin

Next I researched the thiller/gangster genre by looking at Lucky Number Slevin. Lucky Number Slevin is a 2006 crime thriller written by Jason Smilovic and directed by Paul McGuigan. Set in New York City, the plot focuses on the paths of Slevin Kelevra (Josh Hartnett), Lindsey (Lucy Liu), two feuding crime lords known as The Boss (Morgan Freeman) and The Rabbi (Kingsley), and a mysterious hit man known as Mr. Goodkat (Willis).
The plot takes many unexpected twists and turns before the surprising ending, and this is something we could perhaps use in our film to keep the audience focusing and interested. The complicated plot is key to the events happening during the film, instead of the focus on characters or something different. The use of such a strong plot helps the story to flow and takes the viewer on a journey. If we had a complicated plot in our film this would be a convention of the classic thriller genre, and would demonstrate we have done our market research.
The characters in Lucky Number Slevin are very mysterious; even one character is named Mr. Goodcat. The twists and turns in the plot reveal that some characters are not who you think they are, and though this sounds difficult to follow, it is actually quite easy. If I included this into my film it would demonstrate clear use of the crime, thriller genre, as people are usually revealed to be someone else as the plot thickens.
The use of two rival gangs is another convention of the thriller genre. Our film has already been decided as a crime/ thriller, and the plot will include either one or two gangs that will threaten the main character. Although because we are not using well known actors that could have already played lots of roles as hard gangsters (Vinnie Jones), we are going to have to show representations of masculinity etc in the actors we use for these roles.

Research - Snatch

Now I am onto the main task of making my own two minute beginning of a film. Our group has chosen the gangster/thriller genre, and we are now researching the beginnings of other films to see what ours might look like, and ideas we could include.

Snatch
The film begins with the two main characters sat looking nervously at a man/figure sat down facing them, but he is in the shadows and has his back facing us, to make him remain annonymous. Over the top of this camera shot is the narrator Turkish talking about him and his partner Tommy, their names, what their job is, and finally the rhetorical question "What do I know about diamonds?" The camera then fades and then follws a series of security cameras watching four jews entering an elevator and entering a hotel room, without an edit, as the credits come on screen.
During the first few minutes of the film there is only one edit - this is the dissolve after Turkish ironically questions himself "What do I know about diamonds?" and we know this is what the film will be about. The figure of a man being in the shadows and having his back to the camera suggests mystery about him, especially when the two main characters are looking nervous ; and this is mainly due to the camera angle too. We can also tell a lot about the type of film due to the clothes the characters are wearing. Turkish and Tommy are wearing old-fashioned suits fitting in with the time and jobs we know they have, thanks to Turkish's narrating. Turkish's narrating gives us a good indication of their chrarcters, and how he is in charge of their partnership, but hardly ever the situation. Finally, we know what the film is about due to the start of the film actually being towards the end of the story, and we also know the events of the film will take us back to the beginning.



Also to help us in our own film, I made a time-line of the opening credits of Snatch, to see what coes where, and how far into the film:
0.00First couple of credits before film
0.02Mid shot of the two main characters as the camera pans above an unknown man's head
0.05Close up of their faces
0.10Mid shot of both of them, then more close ups of each character looking nervously around with narrating over the top0.15
0.20Fades out as narration states "What do I know about diamonds?"
0.25CCTV footage of three Jews walking through a bank. One contiuous shot of their journey as the camera moves to different screens of CCTV, with calm Jewish music in the background
1.00Establishing shot of inside bank and the bank manager shouting
1.05Mid shot of three Jews
1.11Switches back to mid shot of bank manager
1.16Switches back to Jews and the camera zooms as they reveal their weapons as teh music speeds up
1.20Another zoom into bank managers expression
1.30Various shots of Jews beating security guards and quick cuts, the camera spins once each man is beaten
1.42Quick edits of fighting and more spinning
1.56Freeze frame when the directors name comes up and the music cuts
2.03Close up of expressions
2.10Mid shot of man hit to the floor as one Jew asks "Where is the stone?"
2.25Cuts to inside van of the Jews taking off their disguises as the theme music cuts in
2.37Close up of graphic match of the diamond they stole to the mans eye
2.40Zoom out of diamond then the titles role

Juno

For our second bit of filming we had to re-film the first two miuntes of Juno, while the credits are rolling. To do this successfully we had to think about mise en scene and getting each frame exactly like the actual film. I made a storyboard for the different frames we would be using, as seen above.

The use of these storyboards made our job of filming a lot easier. We knew exactly what shot we had to film and found an appropriate location very quickly, knowing what background had to be in each shot. Getting the costume and props was easy as Roxy already had the clothes like Juno wears, and we bought a carton of orange juice to match that seen in the film.

Overall, this exercise again developed our camera filming skills, and we found how much easier it was to work with a storyboard. These elements will be incorporated into our main exercise of creating our own two minute beginning of a film.

When trying to get the video we made of Juno up on screen we are having some difficulty regarding the size of it, so will post this when ready.

The Preliminary

This increased our basic understanding of filming and camera angles, as well as starting to develop the editing software. We found it easy to film the match on action elements of Tony walking through the door; but difficult to keep continuity in the form of weather out the windows, and what the cast were wearing because we had to film over a few days. Overall, this task helped us understand how much footage we would need for our final exercise (much more than we expected), and a basic knowledge of the editing software.

This is the final version of our preliminary:


As you can see we had issues with the size of the screen on which the film is now projected, and these carried on to our re-filming of the beginning of Juno. I will upload the video when we have found a solution to making the actual film larger.

Rules of the preliminary

In our preliminary exercise, we had to include the following basic rules:

• Match on match action – refers to a film editing technique where the editor cuts from one shot to another view that matches the first shot's action and energy. Although the two shots may have actually been shot hours apart from each other, match on action gives the impression of continuous time when watching the edited film. By having a subject begin an action in one shot and carry it through to completion in the next, the editor creates a visual bridge which distracts the viewer from noticing the cut or noticing any slight continuity error between the two shots.

• Shot/reverse shot – this is a film technique wherein one character is shown looking at another character (often off-screen), and then the other character is shown looking "back" at the first character. Since the characters are shown facing in opposite directions, the viewer assumes that they are looking at each other. Shot reverse shot is a feature of the "classical" Hollywood style of continuity editing, done so the audience perceives one continuous action that develops linearly, chronologically, and logically.

• 180 degree rule - states that two characters (or other elements) in the same scene should always have the same left/right relationship to each other. If the camera passes over the imaginary axis connecting the two subjects, it is called crossing the line. The new shot, from the opposite side, is known as a reverse angle. This is shown in the diagram below:

Introduction

The people in my group is Kiel Ormesher, Roxy Potts and Tony Myers. We have currently learnt about rules in filming and will be applying these to our preliminary exercise and re-filming the beginning of Juno, before going onto making the first two minutes of our own film.

The reason for remaking the beginning of Juno and our preliminary exercise is to get used to the cameras, and familiarise ourselves with using storyboards and the editing software we have available to us. This information will benefit us in our final task of filming the first two minutes of our own film.

Our first bit of research in media was to research our favourite film and make a powerpoint presentation about it. I chose The Warriors, a gangster/ thriller film, and this fits in with my future target research.